When I was Dead

And yet my heart
Will not confess he owes the malady
That doth my life besiege."
All's Well that Ends Well

That was the worst of Ravenel Hall. The passages were long andgloomy, the
rooms were musty and dull, even the pictures were sombre andtheir subjects
dire. On an autumn evening, when the wind soughed and ailedthrough the trees
in the park, and the dead leaves whistled and chattered, whilethe rain
clamoured at the windows, small wonder that folks with gentlenerves went
a-straying in their wits! An acute nervous system is a grievousburthen on
the deck of a yacht under sunlit skies: at Ravenel the chain ofnerves was
prone to clash and jangle a funeral march. Nerves must bepampered in a
tea-drinking community; and the ghost that your grandfather, witha skinful
of port, could face and never tremble, sets you, in yoursobriety, sweating
and shivering; or, becoming scared (poor ghost!) of your bulgedeyes and
dropping jaw, he quenches expectation by not appearing at all. SoI am left
to conclude that it was tea which made my acquaintance afraid tostay at
Ravenel. Even Wilvern gave over; and as he is in the Guards, anda polo
player his nerves ought to be strong enough. On the night beforehe went I
was explaining to him my theory, that if you place some drops ofhuman blood
near you, and then concentrate your thoughts, you will after awhile see
before you a man or a woman who will stay with you during longhours of the
night, and even meet you at unexpected places during the day. Iwas
explaining this theory, I repeat, when he interrupted me withwords,
senseless enough, which sent me fencing and parrying strangers,--onmy guard.

"I say, Alistair, my dear chap!" he began, "youought to get out of this
place and go up to Town and knock about a bit--you really ought,you know."

"Yes," I replied, "and get poisoned at the hotelsby bad food and at the
clubs by bad talk, I suppose. No, thank you: and let me say thatyour care
for my health enervates me."

"Well, you can do as you like," says he, rapping withhis feet on the
floor. "I'm hanged if I stay here after to-morrow I'll bestaring mad if I
do!"

He was my last visitor. Some weeks after his departure I wassitting in the
library with my drops of blood by me. I had got my theory nearlyperfect by
this time; but there was one difficulty. The figure which I hadever before
me was the figure of an old woman with her hair divided in themiddle, and
her hair fell to her shoulders, white on one side and black onthe other. She
as a very complete old woman; but, alas! she was eyeless, andwhen I tried to
construct the eyes she would shrivel and rot in my sight. But to-nightI was
thinking, thinking, as I had never thought before, and the eyeswere just
creeping into the head when I heard terrible crash outside as ifsome heavy
substance had fallen. Of a sudden the door was flung open and two
maid-servants entered they glanced at the rug under my chair, andat that
they turned a sick white, cried on God, and huddled out.

"How dare you enter the library in this manner?" Idemanded sternly. No
answer came back from them, so I started in pursuit. I found allthe servants
in the house gathered in a knot at the end of the passage.

"Mrs. Pebble," I said smartly, to the housekeeper,"I want those two women
discharged to-morrow. It's an outrage! You ought to be morecareful." But she
was not attending to me. Her face was distorted with terror.

"Ah dear, ah dear!" she went. "We had better allgo to the library
together," says she to the others.

"Am I master of my own house, Mrs. Pebble?" I inquired,bringing my
knuckles down with a bang on the table.

None of them seemed to see me or hear me: I might as well havebeen
shrieking in a desert. I followed them down the passage, andforbade them to
enter the library.

But they trooped past me, and stood with a clutter round thehearth-rug.
Then three or four of them began dragging and lifting, as if theywere
lifting a helpless body, and stumbled with their imaginaryburthen over to a
sofa. Old Soames, the butler, stood near.

"Poor young gentleman!" he said with a sob. "I'veknowed him since he was a
baby. And to think of him being dead like this and so young, too!"

I crossed the room. "What's all this, Soames!" I cried,shaking him roughly
by the shoulders. "I'm not dead. I'm here--here!" As hedid not stir I got a
little scared. "Soames, old friend!" I called, "don'tyou know me! Don't you
know the little boy you used to play with? Say I'm not dead,Soames, please,
Soames!"

He stooped down and kissed the sofa. "I think one of the menought to ride
over to the village for the doctor, Mr. Soames," says Mrs.Pebble; and he
shuffled out to give the order.

Now, this doctor was an ignorant dog, whom I had been forced toexclude
from the house because he went about proclaiming his belief in asaving God,
at the same time that he proclaimed himself a man of science. He,I was
resolved, should never cross my threshold, and I followed Mrs.Pebble through
the house, screaming out prohibition. But I did not catch even agroan from
her, not a nod of the head, nor a cast of the eye, to show thatshe had
heard.

I met the doctor at the door of the library. "Well," Isneered, throwing my
hand in his face, "have you come to teach me some newprayers?"

He brushed by me as if he had not felt the blow, and knelt downby the
sofa.

"Rupture of a vessel on the brain, I think," he says toSoames and Mrs.
Pebble after a short moment. "He has been dead some hours.Poor fellow! You
had better telegraph for his sister, and I will send up theundertaker to
arrange the body."

"You liar!" I yelled. "You whining liar! How haveyou the insolence to tell
my servants that I am dead, when you see me here face to face?"

He was far in the passage, with Soames and Mrs. Pebble at hisheels, ere I
had ended, and not one of the three turned round.

All that night I sat in the library. Strangely enough, I had nowish to
sleep nor during the time that followed, had I any craving to eat.In the
morning the men came, and although I ordered them out, theyproceeded to
minister about something I could not see. So all day I stayed inthe library
or wandered about the house, and at night the men came againbringing with
them a coffin. Then, in my humour, thinking it shame that so finea coffin
should be empty I lay the night in it and slept a soft dreamlesssleep--the
softest sleep I have ever slept. And when the men came the nextday I rested
still, and the undertaker shaved me. A strange valet!

On the evening after that, I was coming downstairs, when I notedsome
luggage in the hall, and so learned that my sister had arrived. Ihad not
seen this woman since her marriage, and I loathed her more than Iloathed any
creature in this ill-organised world. She was very beautiful, Ithink--tall,
and dark, and straight as a ram-rod--and she had an unrulypassion for
scandal and dress. I suppose the reason I disliked her sointensely was, that
she had a habit of making one aware of her presence when she wasseveral
yards off. At half-past nine o'clock my sister came down to thelibrary in a
very charming wrap, and I soon found that she was as insensibleto my
presence as the others. I trembled with rage to see her kneeldown by the
coffin--my coffin; but when she bent over to kiss the pillow Ithrew away
control.

A knife which had been used to cut string was lying upon a table:I seized
it and drove it into her neck. She fled from the room screaming.

"Come! come!" she cried, her voice quivering withanguish. "The corpse is
bleeding from the nose."

Then I cursed her.

On the evening of the third day there was a heavy fall of snow.About
eleven o'clock I observed that the house was filled with blacksand mutes and
folk of the county, who came for the obsequies. I went into thelibrary and
sat still, and waited. Soon came the men, and they closed the lidof the
coffin and bore it out on their shoulders. And yet I sat, feelingrather
sadly that something of mine had been taken away: I could notquite think
what. For half-an-hour perhaps--dreaming, dreaming: and then Iglided to the
hall door. There was no trace left of the funeral; but after awhile I
sighted a black thread winding slowly across the white plain.

"I'm not dead!" I moaned, and rubbed my face in thepure snow, and tossed
it on my neck and hair. "Sweet God, I am not dead."